Friday morning, with a headache and Tam Dao

Woke up to a headache (again). I haven't had chronic headaches in a good long while and wonder how I lived with them (uh, not all that well).

Sticking to my promise to try new scents, I just applied some Diptyque Tam Dao. I've tried it before and have no memory of what I thought (bad sign for either the scent, my memory, or both).

First impression: I've got one milligram of the stuff. It's so weak I'm concerned I may have to use up the entire vial to get a sense of its scent. Perhaps my headache is getting in the way. I am a bit stuffed up.

Second impression: Smells like a piece of furniture that's just been polished. And I don't mean that in some good evocative way.

Third impression. I'm glad it's weak. I've had it on for barely half an hour and it's almost completely faded. Glad I didn't put some on my clothes, as is a good idea with many of today's fleeting scents. I'm looking forward to another scent for the rest of the day.

I'm in somewhat of a bad mood. I'm sure that this affects my judgment. It's mornings like these that I reach for scents that I am sure of and know will lift my spirits. Yes, perfume can do that.

Painting note: Jasper Johns (again) White Flag 1955
This has nothing to do with the above post. Even though thoughts about politics are stirring in my brain, I'm sick of writing about any of it (at least for this morning). If you need a political analysis fix, I suggest reading Paul Krugman's "The Resentment Factor" or Judith Warner's "The Mirrored Ceiling".

Both conventions used the American flag as a piece of stagecraft. The power of this flag and its iconography is tremendous (what an understatement). When Johns takes the red, white and blue out of the flag, and turns it into a study in monochrome, what is he saying? Think about it. I'm not up to it right now.

Scent Addendum: It didn't take much to scrub off the Tam Dao. It's not that it was awful. I just needed something more uplifting, as my headache tromps on, unabated. Oh, how I wanted to reach for the Chergui! But no, I poked around and decided on Annick Goutal's Neroli. In spite of it being a soliflore,(a fragrance which focuses on a single flower), it seems richer. And in spite of it's being Neroli, it brings to my mind memories of many a stroll on hot summer nights, the pleasure of encountering a random honeysuckle bush and stopping to savor its scent.

Last thoughts for this post: Maybe wearing and sniffing more than one scent whilst having a headache is not the best of ideas. By the time I proofread this post, my head was pounding and I was thinking "perhaps I should scrub the Neroli", even though I find it lovely. Lesson? Maybe not every day is a good day for wearing scent.

Okay, those were not the last thoughts for this post. I didn't scrub the Neroli. Now that it's dried down and settled in (the second description not being an official perfumista expression), I thought "What's familiar about this?" Hmmm. It reminds me of the scent of Chanel No. 19 after wearing it for many hours. A nice surprise (and no, my headache has not gone away).